


Noël

by neatomosquito



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The extremely in-depth Harry Potter AU literally no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 05:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16528070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neatomosquito/pseuds/neatomosquito
Summary: When accepted at Hogwarts, each new student is introduced to a world of magic and delights beyond their wildest dreams; and to all the generations of prejudice and baggage that comes with it. CJ, Toby, Sam and Josh are about to discover just how political the wizarding world really is.Follows their schooling through 1992, 1994 and 1997.





	Noël

“Have you seen him yet?” The girl was tall and thin, with short-cut hair. Her arms were crossed, angry, across her chest, and her lips were tight, unforgiving. Around her, Kings Cross’s platform 9 and ¾ shrieked with the start of the new school year. “I swear to _Merlin_ , when I catch him, I’m going to—”

“I haven’t seen him,” the boy across from her, about a foot shorter with a jumper three sizes too large, and a mad crop of curly hair, assuaged her quickly. He had a blue, Ravenclaw tie and his wand (maple, 10 and a ¼ inches, unicorn hair), tucked into his front pocket like a ball-point pen. He blinked a little, as a boy, who couldn’t have been older than a second year, with blonde hair and a rather round face, pushed past, eyes glued to the ground, caught up in frantic search for something. “And when I do, I’ll be sure to tell him you want him buried in a ditch.”

“Don’t tell him that,” the girl snapped. She’d been toying with her wand (rosewood, 9 inches, dragon heartstring) throughout the conversation, and the boy had been eyeing it nervously, that in her irritation she might substitute him in for the other who had her so riled. “Because then he’ll avoid me even more.”

“That might be a good thing,” the boy said, wry. “At this point. I don’t know if you want to be expelled for hexing someone before even properly starting your fourth year—”

“What fourth year knows any hex bad enough to be _expelled_ for?” The girl demanded.

“Firstly, that’s a little beside the point,” the boy said, still eyeing her wand, which was presently smothered in a balled fist. “I think intent is more what they’re caring about. And, secondly, _you_ do.”

The girl smiled faintly. “I really do, don’t I?”

Both turned as the whistle sounded, and the smoke, which had been pouring out illiberally until that point, started to coat the air in a vicious fog.

“We’d better board,” the boy said, running a hand through his hair. “Look, CJ…”

“It’s fine,” she sighed. She still scowled, staring down at her copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ , which now, instead of instructing the reader on the long, varied and interesting history of the institution, now read ‘ _CJ Will you go on a date with me?’_ for 700 pages. “I’ll find some way to turn it back.”

“Try _finite incantatem_ ,” the boy offered, edging towards the train.

Absently, CJ followed, emerging through the steam and onto the quiet warmth of the Hogwarts Express. By the time the two of them had found a compartment to sit down in, she seemed almost amused.

“You know,” she said, after a length. “This was really, rather, clever magic.”

Josh sighed and blinked at her. “Was it now.”

“Yeah.” CJ said, and then cleared her throat. “But honestly, and I really mean it this time, the next time I see Danny Concanon will be the last time he breathes air.”

“I see we’ve stepped up from a good old fashioned jelly legs jinx, then,” Josh remarked.

“Hello, CJ, Josh,” Toby nodded at them both and announced himself with as muted grandeur as he could muster, pulling in his trunk and levitating it, quickly and efficiently onto the racks over his head.

“Tobias,” CJ greeted. “Nice of you to join us. I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

“I nearly didn’t,” Toby said, stowing his wand and sitting down beside her. “There was something going on with the barrier. It took a little bit of poking to get it working again.”

“That’s what you get for being late,” Josh told him.

Toby frowned. “I _wasn’t_ late.”

“Well you weren’t on time,” CJ argued.

“In fact, I was _exactly_ on time,” Toby settled into the argument with an admirable ease. “In fact, you might say I _was_ early, and would have been _earlier_ had the stupid magic been working properly.”

“I always suspected that the 9 and ¾ entrance was a bit bipolar,” Josh said, putting words to the conspiracy theory popular with Muggleborns. Both he and CJ had discussed it at length, specifically referring to a fabled incident in 1987, where three muggleborn girls had been trapped out between regular old platform 9 and regular 10. They’d had no way to contact the ministry and had missed the entire first term. Of course, CJ was relatively certain that the school would notice her absence if the causeway decided to stop working when it was her turn to run through, but the anxiety still sat at the back of her neck. She was worried, as she was sure many of the other muggleborns were, that Hogwarts was simply a magnificent dream, a very real seeming hallucination, and that one day she’d be brought back to her senses and back into the ‘real’ world.

“What, are you taking his side now?” CJ demanded. “Am I supposed to stand alone, now, in the ‘Toby was Late’ camp?”

“I’ll stand there with you,” a new voice announced himself. The boy who entered had a healthy summer tan and nearly blonde hair, blue eyes and a strong jaw. He had square glasses which he kept folded in his pocket when he wasn’t reading. In another lifetime he would have been the face of an international Wizard Wear company. In this lifetime, he was far too smart. “I think Toby should be held accountable for his actions.”

“Nice entrance,” Josh remarked.

“ _Thank_ you.” CJ pursed her lips at Toby, who met her gaze unwaveringly, before greeting Sam properly. “Hello, dear. How was the last bit of your break?”

“Not too bad,” Sam smiled, and returned an offered hug. “Sydney was quite nice, though the magical community there is really quite thin on the ground.” He settled down into the seat besides Josh. “I think they all move to Melbourne and Tasmania.”

“Why?” CJ asked, curious.

“Economic reasons, I think,” Sam said.

“Oh,” CJ said. “I thought it’d be a little more interesting than that.”

“That’s the issue with you muggleborns,” Toby joked. “You think there’s a cool, magical reason behind everything.”

“You’re a half-blood,” CJ reminded him.

“So?”

CJ opened her mouth, but then closed it. She tried again, “Yeah, I don’t know where that was going. Exactly. I have a vague notion of where I wanted to end up, though.”

The conversation devolved from there into what the next year would bring. The four had all decided to take Ancient Runes, despite the course load, because they each secretly wanted to see which of them would end up the best at it. The Ravenclaws of the group, Josh and Sam, were relatively confident that their ability at memorization and comprehension would push them over the line. The Gryffindors, CJ and Toby, were certain that their unyielding devotion to their standing within their peer groups, as well as unflinching nature in the face of adversary, would ensure that when it came down to it, and time needed to be spent, it would be they who could triumph over the smug Ravenclaws.

From there CJ found time to run through a charm she’d found useful over the summer break—

(“Honestly, it flattens frizz in less than 90 seconds. With those kind of results, there’s no reason it has to be gendered at all.”)

\--and Sam spoke a little more about his trip across the pacific. And, more specifically, the moment he realized that the wizard he’d accidentally run into at one of the beaches in Far North Australia had been Florence Hutchley, the captain of the Australian Quidditch Team.

“Autograph?” Josh spilled out, too excited to make out full sentences. “ _Tell_ me you got—”

Smirking, Sam waved his wand with an ‘ _accio_ ’ and a small piece of paper flew down from his trunk, settling into Josh’s hands. The latter’s eyes widened as he took it in.

“This is better than anything,” Josh said, voice slightly faint. He looked up at Sam imploringly. “ _Frame this_.”

“Australia beat Japan 260 to 40 in 1990 under her,” Toby said, quietly and with reverence. “Cast it in _gold_ , install it in a gallery, make people _pay_ to look at it.”

Sam took it back from Josh gingerly, and, flicking his wand with a confident ‘ _depulso_ ’, sent the paper back up to where he’d summoned it from. “I think I might just keep it to look at sometimes.”

None of his friends were exactly _surprised_ at Sam’s easy confidence with fourth level charms. He’d always been incredibly instinctive in the area, and had rarely, if ever, needed direction in its regard. He’d been swallowing fifth level charms at the end of their third year, and Flitwick had allowed him to sit in on a few O.W.L. lessons towards the end of the year to get a taste of what an advanced study would feel like. They were impressed, of course. As impressed as they were when CJ outshone in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Toby in Transfiguration, and Josh, in, well, everything they were good at and everything else as well. The four of them had banded together, as if kindred souls had some sort of magnetic field. Sometimes, when the four of them would visit, Professor Bartlet would somberly name them the ‘leading minds of their generation’, and get quiet, and melancholic. Sometimes, in those moments, CJ felt something heavy on her shoulders, and other times, she felt something warm glow in her chest.

A rap at the door had the four of them turn to see the trolley lady, grey haired and smiling sweetly, ask them if they would, perhaps, like anything to eat. CJ felt her stomach gurgle eagerly in reply with need for sustenance.

CJ leapt up, ordering quickly and without taking a breath. Pumpkin pasties, Bertie Botts and as much chocolate as she could carry were handed over, and the girl struggled back to her seat, dumping her wares around her and gleefully picking up a chocolate frog. Toby got up after her, engaging in a little more of a conversation with the witch, and mulling over his options.

“If you get Agrippa,” Josh eyed her prize. “Can I trade you?”

“Aren’t we getting a little old for chocolate frog card trading?” CJ asked, unwrapping the box and quickly biting into the frog, before it could leap away.

“Well, no one told me that,” Josh defended himself. Then, as if to get back at CJ for insulting him, he turned to Sam and Toby. “You know, Danny Concanon transfigured CJ’s book to ask her out for him and she called it ‘particularly clever magic’.”

CJ swallowed her chocolate and narrowed her eyes. “ _What_? It was!”

“Can I see?” Sam asked instead of making another, different, and more readily available comment.

CJ sniffed and took another bite. She swallowed roughly. “No.” She glanced down into her box. “And I got Newt Scamander. Does anyone not have him?”

“I have bloody _loads_ ,” Josh muttered, cross. “I have at least five Scamanders. Honestly, do they know how to print anyone else?”

“Does anyone else need anything?” Toby asked them, turning back into the compartment, clutching a cauldron cake and a bottle of pumpkin juice.

Sam and Josh went up together, quickly, irritation over the Chocolate Frog card debacle forgotten for the moment. Once they returned and the lady had pushed on, they sat around eating contentedly.

“Who’d you get this time?” Josh asked, nodding over to CJ, who’d finished opening her second chocolate.

“Alistair Crowley,” she said, sounding satisfied. “I haven’t got one of him yet.”

They broke into a companionable silence, each of them attacking their food with a healthy endeavor. Toby got through his first pasty in three large bites, which, to questioning glances, he defended with a ‘no breakfast’. CJ shared around her bertie botts. She was pretty sure she got a blood flavoured bean, but Josh assured her that they didn’t make those.

“Sort of a slippery slope,” Josh consoled her as she desperately washed her mouth out with water. “I mean, what’s next? Brain flavoured? Lung flavoured? _Liver_ flavoured?” A pause, and then, “Actually, I think they might have a patté one, but you get the idea.”

They were halfway through the box when Toby accidentally chewed at a boogey flavoured, and Sam grabbed at his Pumpkin juice desperately when he accidentally threw an entire Volcanically Hot Chili flavoured bean into his mouth in a moment of epic hubris.

“How’s your mum, Josh?” CJ asked, nudging over a bean she knew was coconut flavoured. Josh took it gratefully and rolled his eyes, sighing.

“She’s alright, she thinks that wearing a uniform to the platform is compulsory, though, no matter how many times I tell her she sounds barking. And she thought I was pulling a joke, you know, when I said we get changed on the train.” He breathed in heavily. “She thinks we, you know, just magic ourselves to the castle. She thinks the train is all part of the mirage.”

“Why _don’t_ we just floo to the castle?” CJ asked, suddenly.

“Logistical nightmare,” Toby answered her (to which CJ muttered “fair enough”). And, “What did your mother think you were doing the first two years?”

Josh’s frustration seemed to bulge his eyes, slightly. “That’s what _I_ said!”

“And I said—” the compartment door pushed open, and a sneering face. “That there was no way _Claudia Jean_ had boarded the train and not come and found me for a hello.”

“Is _that_ what they’re calling jelly legs jinxes these days?” CJ snarked back, eyes flashing. CJ was a remarkable woman with a patience which stretched far further than the average witch and wizards. However, there was no hint of that patience with Flaccus Mattel. Scion of a Black mother and a father from a wealthy (though little known) pureblood line, his views on the rights of muggleboarn and half-blood witches and wizards came into direct conflict with CJ’s, and the other boys’, own. There was, however, more of a personal nature to the matter. There was very little that Mattel enjoyed more than riling CJ up, and there was little CJ hated more than interacting with Flaccus on any level.

Behind him, two slytherin goons (one might have been Marcus Flint, and CJ wondered if he’d finally been kept back a year, like everyone had suspected), laughed in low, dumb voices.

“You don’t have some first years to torment, _Fuccus_?” Josh used their choice nickname with an easy, but nonetheless impassioned, menace. “Surely there’s some poor child excited for their first day of school for you to ruin.” He considered his Slytherin counterpart, who was sneering. “Or have you outgrown that particular hobby?”

“Don’t talk down to me, _mudblood_ ,” Mattel spat.

“Did you honestly just come in here to insult CJ and call as many of us slurs as you could?” Sam asked, sounding quite tired. CJ, however, knew him well enough to hear the anger underneath his voice. “Because honestly, you guys are fourth years now. It’s getting a little sad.”

“Mock us all you want,” Mattel started, clearly about to launch into a monologue of mythic proportions.

“I wasn’t mocking you, I was quite clearly growing tired of you,” Sam snapped, and this time he stood. “I won’t be lectured at by some half-Black with an inferiority complex. It’s not their fault you have barely two brain cells to rub together. But I will say this,” Sam took a rough step forward. “I don’t like bullies. I…I _despise_ bullies. You know this about me, but it’s been a while since you’ve had all four off us at once. You might need reminding why it’s better to go after us one by one.” He took another step forward, and this time, while he was about an inch shorter than Flaccus, seemed to dominate over him. “We’re smarter than you, we’re better than you. You’re part of a dying breed, mother’s boys with too much money and no sense, destined for some cushy bureaucratic job somewhere amongst the web of your father’s measly connections. You’ll die, with the rest of your generation, in cold rooms with no fanfare. Our _ideas_? What _we_ represent? Progress? Real, _proper_ peace? That will persist.”

The room seemed to hold its breath. Sam hadn’t raised his voice, he hadn’t needed to. The room was enraptured, captured. Even the Slytherins seemed in awe.

“Watch your _back,_ Seaborn,” Mattel snapped, turning on his heel, with the two slytherins (probably Marcus Flint, and Adrian Pruce with a rather alarming, disarming and distracting new haircut and a bit of a tan), and the door to the compartment slammed shut.

As soon as Sam’s shoulders had relaxed and he’d turned back around, the compartment burst into cheers.

“Alright, alright,” Sam was nearly smiling. “Quit it.”

“My hero,” CJ fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“You’re welcome,” Sam said, flushed, hurrying back into spot next to Josh.

“That was a neat bit of oratory, there, Sammy,” Toby said in a low voice and a twinkle in his eye. As much as he seemed to be mocking, Sam could hear the true admiration in his friend’s voice.

“Anyway,” CJ said, though she was still smiling. “What do we think of Lockhart taking defence?”

“Should be a laugh,” Josh said, not looking up from where he was fiddling with a loose string on the sleeve of his jumper.

“It’s beyond erroneous to give a position as important as defense to someone so basically incompetent,” Toby added, mouth downturned.

“Two very different answers,” CJ facilitated. “Sam? Care to weigh in?”

“Our last Defence teacher tried to, you know, free the Dark Lord so that he could return to kill us all,” Sam shrugged. “Even if he is a bit of a dunderhead, it’s better than that, right?”

“He also has accomplished quite a lot,” CJ shrugged.

Toby seemed to take this as a personal insult. “ _Allegedly._ ”

“How else would he write books about them?” CJ narrowed her eyes. “Allegedly? What, do you think he makes them up?”

“You have to admit, that it sounds a lot more plausible than him actually have done them,” Josh was half grinning. “Have you _seen_ the man? I don’t know about you, but I can’t see him jumping into thigh high marshland to take on a particularly worrisome grindylow. I’m not even sure he’d win against a flubberworm.”

Josh and Sam laughed appreciatively, but CJ narrowed her eyes. “How did you know the Grindylow story?”

There was a pregnant silence, and Josh, averting his eyes, cleared his throat. “Look, as much as those books are trash, they’re pretty fun to read.”

They weren’t far off Hogsmeade from there, and each changed into their school robes, the boys backing out of the room for CJ’s privacy and CJ sitting, arms crossed, outside the front of the compartment while she waited for the boys to finish.

None of them mentioned Mattel, or Sam’s speech to him, but it didn’t go forgotten, either. CJ could sense how it had impacted upon the four of them, saw it in the way Toby would regard his friend with a new level of fondness, how Josh seemed to engage with Sam first before expanding the conversation out to include Toby and CJ. CJ would giggle more at Sam’s attempts at jokes, and asked his opinion first on the freshest Ministry scandal she’d read about in the _Prophet_ that morning. He seemed to take each of their attentions as _thank you’s,_ and by the time the train pulled to a stop, all the nastiness from Mattel’s visit seemed to have washed off them, left behind somewhere on the side of the train tracks.

Of the four of them, only Josh could see the thestrals. Each of the others had some vague notion of what they looked like, but were far more intimately aware of the specific conditions necessary for one to be able to see them. CJ had always suspected it was Josh’s sisters passing away, but she knew that Toby had always thought it had been his father’s. Besides the fact that he could see them at all, CJ always felt that the fact that there was so much debate over the root cause of the ability in the first place brought her heart a little closer to breaking.

As usual, it was a quiet, but high energy ride to the castle, each of the four excited to see the towers and turrets, to finally return to the home that they’d been separated from for so long.

#

“GRYFFINOR!” the hat bellowed, and the table around CJ burst into applause. Grinning, CJ cheered as the timid first year hurried over to the table, taking a seat as quickly as they could. The next child, some girl with a head of black curls and blinking, fearful eyes shakingly sat down, with the hat placed over her head.

A pause, and then, “HUFFLEPUFF!”

The table to CJ’s right exploded into cheers, and the girl, obviously relieved once the hat had been removed, skipped over, taking a seat next to a girl who looked similar enough to be her sister. CJ couldn’t forget her own sorting, not ever.

_You have ambition for spades, my dear. And a fierceness. Slytherin could be a nice fit for you._

She could remember balling her hands into fists and begging not to be put with the boys like Flaccus Mattel, who’d accosted her on the train, demanding to know her lineage.

_Ah, yes. I see, I see. Slytherin is cruel to those who do not conform. You have a mind that’d suit Ravenclaw, and a deep well of loyalty. But I think, yes, you have far too much heart. It better be—_

“GRYFFINDOR!”

CJ jerked back to reality and cheered on as the final new (tiny, in slightly too-big robes, with millions of freckles and red hair) first year scampered over to her feast table, taking a seat next to the girl who’d been sorted a few moments ago.

“Before we begin,” Dumbledore alighted the lectern and the brief spark of conversation that had developed over the course of the sorting died down to nothing. “I’d like to offer a few words. The sorting has been a tradition imbued into the DNA of Hogwarts since its inception. Few British witches and wizards, as they age, ever truly lose their loyalty to their house, and their hatred of the other three.

“The sorting originally started as a set of tests each of the founders would set out for their prospective students. There were far fewer in the days of Godric, Salazar, Rowena and Helga, and they could afford to be thorough. Gryffindor would present them with a boggart; both to see whether the students reaction was sufficiently brave, but, also, and to a far more important extent, to decide whether or not the fear, the one true, earthly fear, was of a certain calibre. Rowena would present the students with riddles for them to solve, and would assess how they approached the question as well as the limits of their accuracy. Salazar would stalk around as they were being tested by his co-founders, and he’d deduce whether they could find a home in Slytherin off of this knack alone. Helga would brew tea and sit with the students, ask them about their lives, about their families.

“However, it stands to reason that there would be some students, or many, who fit into the requirements of each of these founders. Or, fit into more than one category convincingly. In those cases, the student was required to pick. Were they brave? Clever? Ambitious? Kind?”

Dumbledore paused and looked out across the hall. “What is important to know, is that when they picked bravery over cleverness, they weren’t condemning cleverness at all. They were, rather, preferencing bravery amongst their particular set of skills. Nor were they discounting the merits of ambition, nor kindness. Primacy, Students, should not be mistaken for superiority. And on that note, enjoy your feast!”

A curious sort of rumbling conversation started across the hall in the moment that passed, and CJ blinked away as Dumbledore and his twinkling glasses turned back to his seat at the teacher’s table.

“That was different from last year,” Toby remarked, curious. “I wonder…”

“I suppose after the events with Quirrel last year, everyone needs reminding of the things that unite us, rather than divide us,” CJ shrugged.

Toby nodded, rather slowly. “I suppose.” He looked disquieted. “It’s not exactly comforting, though. These speeches are usually so…” He smiled a little, as if in memory. “Light, welcoming. This seemed more like a warning.”

CJ felt the same unease settling in the pit of her stomach. “I wonder what he knows.”

“Where’s Bartlet?” Toby said suddenly. “I can’t see him up there.”

“Maybe he’s dealing with some Gryffindor business,” CJ offered. “Head of House, you know,” she waved her fork, which had a small bite of roast pork skewered at the end. “Something along those lines.”

Toby looked around, scouring down his table. “You know,” he said, suddenly. “I don’t see Potter anywhere.”

“There’s his friend,” CJ nodded at a girl a little way off from them with bushy hair and rather large front teeth. She was chatting happily with a large, blonde boy and a pair of girls who’d be about her age. “I can’t see the other one, what’s his name,” she screwed her face. “Percy’s brother.”

“Percy Weasley is an ignoramus,” Toby muttered darkly, casting a look down the table to where Percy was buttering his bread rather self-importantly. And then, admonishing, “You’re the one who’s supposed to be good with names.”

“There are too many Weasley’s,” CJ sighed. Then her eyes brightened. “Ron!” But then she frowned. “Wait, Rod? Rodney?” She shook her head. “Something like that.”

They returned their proper attention back to the feast, pulling pork and lamb and black pudding onto their plates, mashed potato and steamed beans and honeyed broccoli, sourdough bread rolls with little coils of melting butter to spread on, salads tossed with olive oil and feta and baby tomatoes. CJ tried something curious looking which turned out to be a lamb stew (albeit in a strange shade of orange), and Toby braved a rather red looking soup which he seemed to enjoy (and CJ would later find out was a strange spicy variation on french onion soup). By the time desert came (trifle and bread and butter pudding, ice cream and gelato, cookies and cakes, hot melted fondant for the marshmellows and strawberries and raspberries), CJ’s eyes were already drooping, and the conversation around the hall had diminished slightly. By the time it had all disappeared, she and Toby made their way together to the Gryffindor common room.

“ _Cicero_ ,” Toby instructed the door when they arrived, CJ stifling a yawn behind her hand.

“Welcome back,” the Fat Lady said, smiling proudly, and swinging open for them to climb through.

Both of them didn’t hear about the Ford Anglia until the next day (Toby from the Weasley twins and a particularly excited Lee Jordan, and CJ from Angelina Johnson who seemed, despite her obvious amusement, a little worried about what it would mean for their star seeker). The two of them, alongside the rest of the school, watched Harry and Ron walk around with their shoulders raised like haunches, scurrying from class to class. The loud memory of the Howler seemed to hound their steps. CJ remembered it with a strange mix of fondness and irritation. Howlers weren’t uncommon at Hogwarts, but it didn’t make them any less obtrusive. You had to pause your conversation and everything.

“They’re legends,” Sam complained, as the four of them, sitting in the Entrance Hall, watched a surly Hermione guide Ron and Harry across towards the dungeons, all three of them clutching their cauldrons.

“You’re only saying that because they didn’t lose us points before we had points to lose,” Josh advised Sam, sitting back and leaning on his elbows.

“Worth it,” CJ shrugged, looking up from where she’d been pawing through _the Daily Prophet_. “Oh, _Merlin_ , Barty Crouch can be a totalitarian _arse_.”

“What did he do this time?” Josh inquired, leaning over.

“A two year vetting period for teachers,” CJ answered.

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Sam reasoned.

“It wouldn’t have prevented Quirrel,” CJ pointed out. “He was a rock solid candidate, as far as the school was concerned.” Her face darkened. “Or bloody Gilderoy Lockhart. They’re underqualified, but not _dangerous_.”

“Still,” Sam said, pressing the issue. “It’s better than whatever system we seem to have now.”

“We have no system now,” Josh remarked, stealing the paper from CJ and reading through the article. He sighs heavily and hands it back. “If they paid teachers more, we wouldn’t be having this problem. All the good candidates for defence teacher end up in the aurors and everyone else goes into the ministry or manufacturing.”

“Where do the teachers sleep?” CJ suddenly asked. The boys blinked and looked over at her. She met their gaze. “Like, does anyone know? I’ve been to Bartlet and McGarry and McGonagall’s office and none of them have beds or anything.”

“Magic?” Sam offered.

CJ twisted her lips, unappeased by the suggestion. “I guess.”

“Come on,” Josh stood. “We’re all gonna be late for Charms.”

“You’ve already memorized the syllabus,” CJ muttered.

“So has Sam,” Josh protested, though he wasn’t exactly sure why.

“ _And_ Toby,” Sam added, with similarly murky reasons for finding offence.

Toby just frowned, unperturbed.

CJ rolled her eyes and stepped down, the boys following her. “I’m surrounded by a bunch of nerds, you know that? Nerds, all of you. I should beat you up, steal your lunch money.”

“Lunch is free here,” Toby said.

“It’s sort of a muggle saying,”  Josh informed him. He, Sam and Toby hurried up to keep with CJ’s long legged strides to the Charm’s classroom.

#

After charms, to the irritation of all involved, was History, which required a sustained dash across half the castle. However, by the time the class had all arrived, puffing from their various points in the castle, Professor Bartlet had not yet arrived.

“Should we go in?” CJ offered, looking at the door. The other students seemed reluctant to enter the classroom without a teacher present, and even Sam, Toby and Josh were hesitant to push through behind her. “I’m just going to see—”

She cracked the door and heard voices. Stirred on she opened it wider, before letting it nearly shut when she heard what they were saying. Around them, the other students had fallen into conversation, some of them dropping their books and sitting on the floor.

“What?” Josh asked, trying to look around CJ’s shoulder.

“Mattel is in there,” CJ said, voice low.

“So?” Toby asked, starting forward, but CJ placed a stilling hand on his chest. “He’s talking about us.”

Sam tightened his jaw. “If he has something to say about us, we should give him the opportunity and dignity of letting him say it to our faces.”

“Very noble, Sam,” CJ chided. “But I sort of want to hear what they’re saying.”

Toby worked his jaw for a moment, before drawing his wand (ash, phoenix feather, 10 inches), and casting a quick, clever charm that heightened their ability to hear what Mattel was saying without increasing the volume of his voice.

“—is an annoying bird, but the one I can’t stand is Seaborn,” Mattel was saying. “It’s understandable, at least, when it’s bad blood. But he’s definitely been drinking some sort of strange potion to have ended up so far off the tracks. From such an excellent family, as well.”

(CJ placed a hand on Sam’s arm, and he looked at her appreciatively).

“Blood traitors aren’t worse than mudbloods,” one of his friends commented.

“No,” Mattel agreed, if a little too quickly. “But they’re close.”

Josh felt something cold crawl up his spine. He’d heard Mattel taunt them before, make fun of their blood status. But he’d never, for some reason, picture it being done off camera. Like prejudice was a rarely practiced hobby, only taken out and shown off when Josh was around to regard it. To know that this sort of conversation was _realistic_ , to think of it as well-trodden ground amongst him and his friends shocked Josh deeply. Something in him started to whine, and the front of his head started filling with an angry, cold white fog.

“Cregg and Lyman,” Mattel said. “They’d never stand for this in a place like Drumstrungs. That’s why Father wants to move me there, can’t stand the thought of me rubbing shoulders with that lot.”

One of the others mentioned some other muggleborn students, and Mattel laughed, though without the true hatred he’d seemed to have for CJ and Josh. Josh looked at CJ and saw, rather than fear, a strange mixture of bemusement and anger. The fog in his head seemed to be thickening.

“The rot starts here, you know.” Mattel said. “The more we let it stay, the longer we let it spread.”

Josh pushed the door open with a bang. The four Slytherins turned and, startled at being caught, stood, wands drawn. Josh’s wand was still in his pocket, too far away to extricate if it came to a fight. It wouldn’t, though. He didn’t need the big guns.

“Pretty brave of you to be reciting pureblood propaganda in an empty classroom, Mattel,” Josh sneered. “Afraid that if you call us mudbloods, Sam will have to remind you how worthless and stupid you are again?”

“Hardly,” Mattel said, coolly. “I’d never miss an opportunity to call you a freak to your face, Lyman.”

“Freak?” Josh asked, smiling. “Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with? What, mudblood’s been overused, has it?”

“Josh,” CJ said, warning him to cool down.

“No, no, I need to know,” Josh started forward. “Has it gone out of fashion? Is there something new on the block that you guys have drummed up? Slurs are pretty easy, from what I’ve heard, you just have to _really_ mean it.”

“You should watch your mouth,” Mattel narrowed his eyes. “ _Mud_ —”

“I think I’ve heard, quite enough,” Professor Bartlet entered the room with no fanfare, but with a presence enough that the entire room seemed changed by his entrance. More austere, with more colour, more light, more noise. Josh drew himself up, fondness and love and joy curling like tiny flames in his stomach. “You, boy, tell me, we’re here in a history class room, how long have the Mattel family been a pureblood family for?”

Mattel blinked. “Sir?”

Bartlet looked around at CJ, Josh, Sam and Toby, bemused. “I asked you, how long has your family considered themselves to be pureblood for?”

Mattel cleared his throat. “All time.”

Bartlet made a sound, like a muggle buzzer going off. “ _Wrong_. You see, most wizarding families declare themselves _pure_ after three generations. Especially 100 or so years ago, when records were much easier to forge. Now, let’s try again. How long have the Mattel’s been considered pureblood for?”

This time, there came no answer. Flaccus locked his jaw and stared just under Bartlet’s chin as if playing dead might force him to let up.

But Bartlet was in no mood to let this sort of thing slip. “I can tell you that the Mattel’s developed out of Germany during the 1800s. I can tell you that your great, great, great Grandfather was a muggle shoe smith, and that your equivalent grandmother had been a non-magical woman blessed with a magical child. I can tell you that this is on your father’s side, and that this muggle family’s last name was Mattel.”

Flaccus opened his mouth as if to defend his legacy, but closed it again, tightly.

“And I can tell you, that of the Black family, 54 of the thousands throughout the ages have been muggleborn pretending to be pureblood, including the _paterfamilias_ who brought the name ‘Black’ to the family. And I can tell you that those are only the ones we know about. I’m certain that there are others who were a little better at hiding their shame.” Bartlet paused. “Aren’t you?

“36% of ministry employees are muggleborn, 20% of Hogwarts residents at any given time are muggleborn, except for a brief stint at 50% during the 50s. Muggleborns are 70% more likely to get a unicorn hair wand than any other wizard, and are three times more likely to do better in their second and third year classes than purebloods, even if they were outclassed in their first year. They complete incredible magic and contribute to our little society in innumerable other ways than a couple of statistics I can pull off the top of my head.” Bartlet paused again, the silence pregnant. “Isn’t that _wonderful_? Isn’t that something we should celebrate? Can you imagine it? Those who were once guests in this world becoming masters of it, thriving in it.” He paused. “It was a muggleborn who invented the basic healing spell, _episkey_ , you know. It had been out of necessity. They’d had their arm broken by pureblood loyalists on the outskirts of Rome in the early Republic. He hadn’t any water or food or medical supplies, but he did have his wand.” He paused again. “A muggleborn witch discovered _accio_. Quite by accident. She’d been looking for a spell to locate the position of any nearby wands, thereby alerting her to the presence of any nearby wizards. This had been at the end of the black death, you see, and purebloods blamed muggle-born’s just as the muggle’s blamed magic. She’d been trying to protect herself from her own kind, and invented one of our most useful spells instead. It was a spell she taught freely, and without prejudice. She knew it would benefit her world, despite how ill that world had treated her.”

Mattel finally looked up. There was something a bit different, a little bit gaited. He wasn’t a changed man, not yet. But, and this had come as a sudden realization, Josh understood that he _could_ be.

“You can’t not know the history of your world and expect to pretend to protect it’s legacy,” Bartlet said, with a new energy. “And if I hear you saying that awful, demeaning word one more time, I will make it my personal mission to see you dishonoured and expelled. Am I clear?”

Mattel looked as if responding physically pained him. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Bartlet said. “Leave, I have a class to teach.” The slytherins slunk out of the room, heads ducked down.

“Sir,” Josh said, embarrassed to find his throat slightly tried.

“Let’s not mention it,” Bartlet advised, though there was a new twinkle in his eye. He turned back to his desk and started pulling out his notes. “What’s next?”

(News of Bartlet’s dress down spread quickly throughout the school after that. Students started half-joking that he should run for minister once the administration was done with the fumbling excuse for a Minister for Magic that Fudge had become, despite his promising and early rise. CJ, passionately, thought the idea was a good one, but Toby, more pragmatic in these things, said that no matter how far they’d come since Voldermort had disappeared, they were still eons away from someone as sympathetic as Bartlet to werewolves, house elves, muggle-borns and muggles themselves and as stringently anti-pureblood benefits, taking office. CJ wasn’t sure. Neither was Josh, or Sam.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I feel like there's usually some necessary justification for the houses I've sorted the characters into, and why they're ALL not in Slytherin and my answer to that is:  
> 1\. the glorification of slytherin in recent years is really boring and completely removes that entire bit in the second book about how the password was literally "pure blood" but like go off I guess.  
> 2\. The entire point of the West Wing was what people who were not ambitious but had a strong sense of public duty could accomplish, like there are plenty of story lines about the ills of untapped ambition and it was one of the central conflicts between Abbey and Jed.  
> 3\. Even if they ARE ambitious its always checked by their better qualities; none of them are only loyal to the extent that it helps their careers, they're loyal because they believe in Bartlet's mission and think it will create the most net good in their country.  
> 4\. Toby and CJ are two characters whom are required to show bravery in order to progress their story-lines. Not to mention, CJ is the second most recognisable face in the West Wing as the Press Secretary, and has the same devil-may-care flare that sort of undercoats the Gryffindor house.  
> 5\. Sam and Josh are two characters who usually succeed in their story lines by relying on their intellect.  
> 6\. Will Bailey is a slytherin because i felt like it and also because i didn't want it to look like I was just putting all the Republicans in Slytherin, though I totally would.  
> 7\. Ainsley is a Slytherin because she's one of the few characters in the show who is prepared to sacrifice her loyalties (the GOP) in order to advance her career (arguably). I know that she sort of does it because she wants to serve, but securing a job in the West Wing is definitely one of the prime motivations. Not to mention, she comes around to the other Senior Staff when they display acts of loyalty towards her, proving it's something she admires.  
> 8\. Donna is a hufflepuff because she's kind and the most human of them, and whenever I try to capture Donna's character I remember her telling Josh and Toby off for not listening to Amy Adam's character when they're campaigning for the second term and removing people from politics.


End file.
